Five Poems By Jay Passer

Jay Passer's work has been all over the place and he has had a couple chaps published just last year, from Pski's Porch and Alien Buddha.

Poet Jay Passer

MAYBE STRAVINSKY WAS ONTO SOMETHING

lingering at the bottom of a lake

fragile as cellophane 

the type that gets lodged in the throat of a fish

prior to suffocation.

I’ve been reading mysteries

and masturbating frequently

as the oceans infinitely roar

while the sky owns its own patent on symphony.

in the cosmic sense I just arrived

but I’ve pretty much had it up to here

an effortless drop in the bucket

a ballet performed on a frozen minefield

THE SLUMP

I am so tired

Tied to the bedposts

Revenge style

I write down thoughts

Like haiku

Without any poetic license

Medical examiners

Get away with more

Bad career moves

Locked up in the secured wing

Simmering in the soup

Of the sad-ass soul

I am exhausted

Looking forward to

Renewal

HOW VERY ENDANGERED

how would you like 

to be

extinct?

your mirror image

your trapped spirit animal

your incapacitating injury

your debilitating disease

covered by daddy’s insurance

don’t ask the billionaires for any help

your film idols

sports stars

entertainment whores

the animals covered with oil

after a tanker spill

the journalist posing the

truth

assassinated

these things matter little

when you’re extinct

quit texting your booty

you fucking self-serving
swan

everybody oughta know

the duck

is your mortal

enemy

RAIN POEM

I’m thankful it’s raining today.

It justifies staying home, lying in bed

And not being shot by some maniac on the street.

Of course, an earthquake could hit

Or the psychopath in the White House could go nuclear

But today I’m optimistic.

If I were a hummingbird

I wouldn’t be thinking about anything like this

But I know I’d be glad for the rain as well

.I SPY

I know they won’t

but they ought to preserve my body 

for the scars alone

for proof of existence

scars don’t come easily

surely they’ll archive the Ray-Bans

for what they’ve seen through is

as hideous 

as a World War

sweating in the pocket of your pants

More Poems By Ryan Quinn Flanagan

Ryan Quinn Flanagan is a Canadian-born author residing in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada with his wife and many bears that rifle through his garbage.  His work can be found both in print and online in such places as: Evergreen Review, The Raw Art Review, The New York Quarterly, Punk Noir Magazine, In Between Hangovers, Red Fez, and The Oklahoma Review.

Poet Ryan Quinn Flanagan

Dirty Coal

The coal mine of his head

was caved in by a deliberate brick

and all his ideas were trapped inside

deprived of oxygen and smothered

in soot, his many dirty ideas

knowing they would never see

the light of day

and the doctors tried to work

through the blood rubble of

smashed cranium

and the family found god late

like betting on a horse that won

at the track three years ago,

but there was nothing that could

be done

so that his few remaining ideas

were left to have it out,

cannibalising each other

until the tapping grew

silent.

The Dishes All Put Away for Murder

Stacks of books are an unconditional enterprise

the tyranny of staple guns and children force fed vegetables

each evening like 3-speed blenders new to the world,

when I urinate I stand over the arc of it and think

of rainbows, how people snap pictures like Japanese fingers

and crop them down to nothing

the mud huts of Inner Mongolia just highly stylized dirt

glam rock in a home owner’s sense

the spiders from Mars all nesting in passing comets

and somewhere a little closer to myself

scraggly ear hairs must be plucked out by

industrious tweezers

the dishes all put away for murder

and a strange realization that what I think

is important means nothing

and the things I hold onto escape me

like a trapped bird back

to freedom.

Refuse Cheese

I was suddenly startled half-awake on the couch

by this giant head on the television

that kept screaming:

REFUSE CHEESE!  REFUSE CHEESE!

and I thought to myself

what the hell is this guy’s problem

that he has it out for cheese?

They always give these crackpots face time

to build the drama.

It was not until some moments later

when they showed some protesters holding up

signs that read:

We Support Refugees!

that I understood.

Deep Guttural Belch

you have travelled such a far way

to be expelled.

You must be tired in that carbon monoxide

poisoning sort of way.  

Where nobody moves even though

they look like they should.

That’s how my friend Kevin looked

when he hung himself.

The stillness of a windless field.

But you’ve come so far.

Perhaps they will give you your own

time zone to play with.

Or the keys to the city perhaps.

I made the guest bed up with fresh linens

if you want to lie down.

I hope traffic wasn’t too bad.

Just So the Little Old Church Ladies

That Go Door-To-Door

Know

Any

man

who

sticks

his

own

toothbrush

up

his

butt

before

brushing

is

beyond

saving.

Ryan Quinn Flanagan is a Canadian born author presently residing in Elliot Lake, Ontario Canada. His work has been published both in print and online in such places as The New York Quarterly, Windsor Review, Vallum, The Antigonish Review, CV2, Horror Sleaze Trash, Evergreen Review, Your One Phone Call and In Between Hangovers.

John Grey: Six Poems

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident. Recently published in New Plains Review, Stillwater Review and Big Muddy Review with work upcoming in Louisiana Review, Columbia College Literary Review and Spoon River Poetry Review

THE CARD GAME

Ten p.m.,

wife watches TV,

it's a man's kitchen,

four in all,

each hunched behind

a wall of quarters and dimes

and a cool glass of beer.

Radiators thump,

beagle sniffs each shoe in turn,

police siren in the distant night,

eyes on the dealer

as he slaps cards face down

on the table.

Four look at their hands -

one's face is blank

as a waked corpse,

one smiles smugly,

one's eyes travel back and forth

from card to card

like a witness at a police lineup,

one uncorks a breath

for all to hear.

GRAVEDIGGER

Sweat seeps through forehead redness,

strong wrists join at the spade handle,

steel blade chips into soft clay,

tosses earth on top of earth,

and a deep hole emerges.

Worms slither away from the onslaught.

Breath is red and black with soil.

The spade cracks against a rock

and every bone shudders.

Strong sun overhead.

A man could use a little breeze,

more shade from the willows,

maybe some water.

No more purpose though.

He already has that in spades.

SUBURBIA

Here’s where husbands and wives go

to live their separate lives together,

under heat-lamps, before the television,

on the telephone, in the garage,

knee-deep in the garden

or at the card table with the guys.

It’s all fenced in

so as to look like it’s

holding people to their word,

but that’s mostly a façade,

like the tiled roofs,

the dully painted walls,

all a paean to the idea

that everybody must be somewhere,

so why not here,

in the vicinity of someone else.

There’s even kids to share around.
And summer vacation,

the perfect opportunity to move

the two for one deal elsewhere.

Longings are never discussed.

Dreams remain unanswered.

Occasionally an argument arises

a necessary assertion of self

to whoever happens to be there.

DAVE’S DEAD

Streetlights yellow as sun.

Dave's on the sidewalk - dead -

then six feet of cemetery grass,

Dave's buried - dead -

no wonder

his favorite drinking hole

feels empty

even though

it's thronged

with drunken guys

talking up old exploits -

faithful, soused admirers -

everyone's got a story -

but he's as dead

when they're finished

as when they began

and he'll be dead

when the bar closes -

dead come morning hangover -

dead when the new day demands

whatever it is

living people do -

and, from now on,

they’ll do it

without Dave.

GRIEF

Despite the music playing in the background,

nobody was dancing to it.

A few moved here and there,

mostly a shuffle toward the door,

the subtle kind

where it's not apparent

that they're leaving.

And there was Aunt Doris,

only seen at weddings and funerals,

the haughty carriage of her head,

and the raspy sound of her breathing,

like a file on prison bars.

Her presence was confirmation

of the pleasures of being somewhere else.

I joined the escapees in the parking lot.

Outside was as gloomy as inside had been.

Fog dripped from the pines

that misted off into nothingness

toward the distant town.

The air was drizzly.

The mood depressing.

My car, in the darkness,

was more hearse than Toyota.

"I hate wakes," said one of my cousins.

I hated death.

It amounted to the same thing.

I headed home

and not even the sports talk on the radio

could do anything for my grief.

I'd remain upset that he had died

despite the better recent showing

of the home team.

It was hard to see through the damn fog.

Lights were everywhere

but there were no faces.

Either time would have to heal

or the weather clear.

I drove toward

the most likely to come sooner.

LONER

Townsfolk didn't expect a tornado.

After all, there wasn't the sniff of one

in their entire town's history.

No flying gas pumps,

soaring cows,

houses lifted from their foundations

or swirling cars.

Sure they'd suffered through

a drought or two

but they figured

the weather was on their side.

No one could imagine

horses slammed against tree trunks,

coffins bouncing down Main Street,

trucks careering through cornfields

or siloes spilling their guts.

Townsfolk never said it

hut they just assumed

that it wouldn't happen

to their tiny

out of the way burg.

It never did either

except in the head

of the angry friendless boy

imagining all this.

It never did

but not for want of him

cussing and pleading.